For (1) as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you:

(1) He wisely answers the suspicion which the Corinthians might conceive, as though the apostle in urging them so carefully was doubting of their good will. Therefore he witnesses that he does it not to teach them that they ought to help the saints, seeing that he had become surety for them to the Macedonians. But only to stir those up who were labouring by themselves, to the end that all things might both be in a better readiness, and also be more plentiful.

Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as [a matter of] bounty, and not as [of] (b) covetousness.

(2) But this [I say], He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

(2) Alms must be given neither grudgingly, nor with a loathful mind, or sparingly. And a generous and free alms is compared to a sowing which has a most plentiful harvest of most abundant blessing following it.